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Sunday, 29 December 2013

Remember the garden?

... back in August and again in October George spent a lot of time helping our son to landscape his garden. The garden was designed by a professional who wanted an extortionate amount of money to make it a reality, so Mark (son) got together his ‘team’, father-in-law Norman (the brain), dad George and himself to do as they’re told as the labourers with lots of help too from the rest of the family of course.

From the plan above you can see two tree shapes, one just to the left of centre (a lovely copper beech) and one in the top right -hand corner ( a Rowan/Mountain Ash). The whole design was planned using these existing trees as a base - all the straight lines of the ‘steps’ across the rise of the ground are from tree to tree.

This is more or less how the garden was in October, you can see the lines of the steps between both the trees ... looking towards the top of the garden and then towards the house.

Apart from the decking and pergola that will be next to the Rowan tree, there was ‘just’ the patio to lay and the ‘team’ got together on Thursday (26th Dec). Norman and Mark have been making progress on the patio on Mark’s days off so after the lovely family Christmas the final ‘push’ was made.

The Rowan tree in early August as the work commenced.

Friday morning was forecast to be wet and if it was, we would leave Marks and return home to RnR, but surprisingly the forecast was wrong so we stayed so that George could help with more paving.

Whilst this was going on I was in the bedroom packing our bags ready to leave later when I heard ‘concerned’ voices outside ... Ange had been watching the workers through the patio doors when she noticed that the the wind was blowing the Rowan ‘wrong’. Instead of the branches moving, the whole tree was being swayed by the wind. Mark went to investigate and found a crack low down in the trunk and it was also rotting away ... what to do? Can’t ignore it, it may come down on the new wall and do some damage to cars parked behind ...

So ... it has to come down ... Ange is gutted!

Mark is doing the cutting in the tree, a rope has been found to guide each branch as it’s cut and George will hold the ladder and remove the fallen branches

(sorry about the quality of the pictures - phone camera and strong sunshine)

Once most of the upper, smaller branches have been removed it’s time for the chain saw ...

... the trunk has a V in it at about Mark’s head height so the part facing into the garden is removed ...

... that done the remainder of the tree is cut down to a safe height and work on the patio resumes ...

The pictures above and below were taken on Saturday (we left late Friday afternoon) ...

... and it’s finished. The patio looks great!

Because the (current) Rowan tree is no longer, the ground at the top of the garden can be lowered a little more so that the step onto the decking will be less, so that’s one good thing to come out of the disappointment and hopefully the tree will be replaced in the new year by a sapling Rowan since it was such an integral piece of the whole garden design.